Following last year’s iPhone launch, there was a rush to release handsets based around touchscreens rather than buttons. That led to a profusion of offerings this year — but which ones tapped the right spot?
HTC Touch HD
So it’s not truly HD, but the HTC handset nonetheless has a better and bigger — 3.8in and 480×800 — …

Credibility Zero

The Reg's credibility seems to take a nosedive every time you write an article that in any way references the iPhone. Please, stop calling it the 'Jesus phone' for a start - you're the only people left doing it, and you just make yourself look like idiots when you do.

As for ranking that HTC touch as better than the iPhone - you are kidding ? Have you actually used it ? A thin veneer of UI ontop of Winblows mobile does not a great OS make.

Anyway, I'm off to remove the Reg from my RSS feed reader, as you've not published anything of any quality all year. Bye.

Oh look at how quick the fanbois defend, but ...

I'm another person who's rather neutral about the iPhone. As a phone I don;t think it's that good, and some of it's missing parts I do use, however it's got superb multimedia functionality and it's interface is great for non-technical people.

I can't understand why the fanbois object to the iPhone being referred to as the jesus-phone. It's not just register than uses this term. plus saint Jobbs and his legions still act as if it's the second coming. Also there is a very good reason why it's comapred to in each review. The iPhone, on part because of the legion of fanbois who automatically bought and swear by it, has become the benchmark to beat, especially for interfaces.

Me, I use a HTC Touch Pro, but I'm a heavy weight PDA user, require a real keyboard (the iPhone one I can use but do not like), and require safe, auto-syncing with Outlook. However I do not like HTC's attempted rival to the iPhone interface and TouchFlo3D was disabled within seconds of me receiving the phone.

Accurate for those about functionality.

Seems that there are still credible publishers on the net who can see beyond hype created for devices that lack functionality.

While IPhone is one of the good ones, certainly as usual Aplle is telling people what they need andwhat they don't. For some one who is not technichally challanged, cannot see IPhone as an otion and perhaps the queues also show the mindset of such people. Some people don't like to be one of the members of the i-herd.

Lame

"Anyway, I'm off to remove the Reg from my RSS feed reader, as you've not published anything of any quality all year. Bye."

Brilliant! Someone has finally worked out the modern version of "Tell me how to subscribe so I can cancel in disgust."

Seriously, the article was crap. There was nothing of substance that would help anyone at all make up their mind in choosing a phone. And if you can't aid that decision what exactly are you bothering for?

And yes, "Jesus Phone" is getting a little mouldy. It was funny for a few minutes. Now it sounds more and more like a grubby nerd who, with half a pint inside him, has remembered a screemingly funny (to him) fart joke, and is trying to tell it to every person they can find at the company Christmas party.

And there's the point you seem not to grasp. It's a phone. Designed to be easy to use. There are Millions - yes Millions - probably billions of non-technical people out there who just want to be be able to make calls and listen to music with as little hassle as possible.

Have I got an iPhone? No, but the lovely Ivana is getting one for Christmas because I'm fed up with having to show her how to use her Nokia rubbish.

And as for Jesus-phone, it's just plain insulting. Just think what would have happened if el-reg had called it the Mohammad-phone.

@Andrew Rennard

@Dapprman

"I can't understand why the fanbois object to the iPhone being referred to as the jesus-phone. It's not just register than uses this term. plus saint Jobbs and his legions still act as if it's the second coming."

Because it's stale and highly patronising. And it makes you look like a dick.

Have people ever wondered why fanbois exist? Could it be a reaction to the very vocal minority who slam anything Apple by default rather than just assuming it is the other way around?. The 'Church of Jobs' is no more real than the 'Church of Redmond', an organisation that has far more parishoners - admittedly, the percentage of user base is probably pretty similar.

@ Gary F

Queues are not a sign of anything other than consumer gullibility. Seriously, no grown man has any justification for standing outside a shop in the pissing rain in order to be one of the first to own anything other than the secret to everlasting life or to an everlasting erection.

Granted the iPhone started the touch screen revolution and has a superb UI and browser but the absence of stereo Bluetooth and an even half decent camera are major drawbacks as is the tie to o2 - who I will return to as my cellular supplier when Hell freezes over. They are not failings that can be overlooked merely because it is an Apple product, which seems to be the subtext.

Just because something is the first does not mean it is the best no matter what the debt later generations of products may owe to it.

Would I personally have put the iPhone higher up? Yes. At the top? Probably not - I reckon the Google Phone should be No.1 with the iPhone at 2 and the HD at 3, but I can see where the Reg is coming from.

Reserve your ire for things that matter in the grander scale of things dear boy, its only a phone!

@ Jeebus Phone Followers

Hahhahah the iPhone is shite, and here's why... My HTC Touch Diamond has GPS and oo Bluetooth, I can even use my Bluetooth headphones, something the iPhone has FAILED at... but this is just the tip of the iceberg. Tell me what would you rather have a phone which has a swish inteface but you can't install programs on or a phone with a passable interface and the ability to install ANY (i.e. non certified) program I want to it without breaking the warranty. whats the point of having a crippled BSD clone when I can have a crappy Windows OS phone that I can actually use a platform for OTHER PROGRAMS... shoch horror that i would want to use a an OS as it's intended (as a platform for other apps) . Lets face it the APP store won't let you download memory map or MorphGear emulator, or Pocket Office or anything useful so why bother. The iPhone is for people who don't want to be able to do anything beyond recieve calls and listen to music/watch films, It does however have the best touch screen technology out there on such a devise so yes that is ALL it has going for it otherwise it's a crippled piece of closed sourced Apple tosh .

Way too brief but still true.

I was expecting a four page article so I'm quite disappointed with this (very) mini review. However, I don't intrinsically disagree with what it says.

The iPhone *is* the acknowledged benchmark in this arena so naturally everything will be compared against it.

As for Reg's criticism of the iPhone; well I think that's valid too. Like it or not WM6 is the best supported platform out there; it's at least 2 years out of date but anyone can write an app for it and sell it just how they like. You can install anything on a WM6 device you choose without bricking it or the threat of a future update killing YOUR £x00 mobile/PDA. And finally (after a simple unlocking procedure) you can put any operators SIM in YOUR £x00 mobile/PDA.

Well, how very dare you....

HTC really isn't very good

I have an HTC HD and the interface is one of those where the lag is so great (sometimes) that I'm not sure if I've actually 'pressed' the screen or not. Unfortunately the windows mobile OS 'surfaces' quite a lot and although it's not all bad it really wasn't designed with touch in mind. Stylus anyone?

It has the specs alright (which was what I was seduced by) but the implementation is not all that great. And it's get a chunkster, although as smart phones go quite slim I suppose.

A work colleague has an iphone and the things he always shows off is the apps he downloads (often for free, or so he tells me). To us, at work, it seems the apps are certainly one of the strongest points of the iphone but no mention in the article?

The trouble with the iphone is apple. It's not the device that divides people, its the company and the people who own iphones. I think it annoys the techies in us that a device that isn't as feature rich as others still manages to lay waste to everyone else's sales figures. In the Geek world it is fashionable to dislike apple because they don't let you play mpeg2 encoded files in an AVI container natively. And this is perhaps because Apple like to give users a consistently good experience....or so they say....and these sorts of 'fibs', or lies, do wind people up.

But really, it's not Apples' devices or Apple, it's what happens to people after they buy them....they become terribly self righteous.

no Nokia? Sad...

Too bad there are no Nokias present on the list.

I like how the iPhone was referenced as a media phone as opposed to a smart phone.

iPhone has the interface, yes, it also has the frothing at the mouth fanatics that come along with the stupid amount of money they threw at advertising and hype, but the hardware IS lacking. The lack of MMS and a decent camera are just two significant features that should be standard. I won't get into the lack of security on the phone for enterprise use.

It will be interesting to see what the next year brings in terms of handsets from Nokia, Samsung, HTC, and LG, as they seem to all be bringing forth feature packed handsets with touch screen interfaces.

My N95....

Ah, I fondly remember the days on the comments section when it was 'My N95 can do this, My N95 can do that..Nah Nah Nah'. Life was much simpler then.

I just bought a new phone. Not an iPhone, no not even an N95. Instead just a plain phone - Nokia 6500 Classic. I turned off 3G, MMS, everything when I got it. Now it's _just_ a phone. And thats just f*kin great.

iphone shmyphone

bit of a lazy article, classic end of year roundup crap.

BUT!

what I will say is, I have used an iphone, and its a phone it makes calls, but it is shit for SMS and doesn't even have MMS. So its a good job you have to piss away money on it because teenagers would never want one take to long to cul8ter

Well at least...

... the Apple haters have had to shut up about iPhone users having more money than sense. I note it's the cheapest of the three here.

And as for the apps in the App Store not doing anything useful, depends on what you mean by useful.

Mine has on it an outliner, password safe, diabetes log, guitar tuner/metronome/chord library, photo processors, a program for taking sharper pictures in low light (picks a moment when the phone is still using the accelerometer), e-book reader, file viewer, IM, photo blogging program, voice recorder, program which identifies tunes off the radio etc. Plus a bunch of non-useful but rather amusing games and novelty programs such as guitar/koto/ocarina simulators, the fabulous koi pond etc. Life doesn't have to be all drearily utilitarian, you know. Sure, I haven't got a complete portable office suite, but I had that on my last phone (SE p910) and hardly ever used it.

Your needs may differ, but just cos your definition of useful doesn't match mine doesn't make the device useless, apart from for you.

Soooo much hatred

It's really only a phone. And/or a music player.

My mp3 players have always been ipods, and I'm a Windows user. Funnily enough, Apple fans, the best decision Apple ever made was making the ipod Windows-ready. My first ipod came about a month after that decision.

Ipods are great.

My current phone is an HTC thingy, the Tytn2, aka Vario 3. And there's the rub. Apple can market a phone. Microsoft, thru T-Mobile, can't.

Sometimes I hate my HTC, sometimes I love it. What I *do* appreciate however is its ability to run what I want, how I want. It's not for everyone, but if you can cope with it, it's alright.

(Reminds me a bit about building a Media Centre PC for my dad. I love it and have no problems; he has nothing BUT problems. I genuinely never have anything to fix, he always has issues. Who's at fault - him or Microsoft?)

[I would NEVER give my HTC to my dad. He would break it. But then again, he'd probably manage to break an iphone, which is why Nokia will always be safe.]

I'd like - *like* - an iphone and can get one on a 30%pm discount. But I'm probably going to go for an HTC Touch HD (or whatever it's confusingly called) next time. Why?

Like most Reg readers I'm able to manage a complicated device - which an MS phone is. If I wanted simplicity I'd get a simple Nokia. But I don't. So I am prepared to put up with a Windows Mobile device just *because* it can do so much, not in spite of it. The iphone would be great, but it can't do all I want it to, so tough. Thinking about it, it's exactly the same argument that PCs and Macs face all the time.

So on that basis, I'm going to predict that WinMob will win long-term. It's clunky now; it'll get better. (Apple's partners offering 18-month contracts don't help; a lot can happen in 18 months you muppets.) But for bandwagonesque just-about-ability, Windows Mobile phones can cope and will only get better. Look at it this way: prospects for improvement: WinMob 100%, iphone 10%.

I am not fussed one way or the other, but I am fully prepared to stand by and watch the Jobs lot fuck it all up in their arrogance.

And then laugh as the Gates lot clean up once again.

[And don't think Microsoft are able to fuck things up just like that - look at the rather remarkable sales figures for the 360 this past month compared to their other "big" rival, Sony.]

Stop this "2008" nonsense at once

Flamebait/Troll article

I'm guessing someone needed to up their hit-rate, and putting one of the most successful tech products of the year in 3rd place was an easy target.

It doesn't change the facts though.

Yes, there are other touchscreen phones with better specs.

Yes, Apple fan-boys can be annoying.

At the end of the day though, it is the iPhone that has hosed the competition and completely changed what we ALL thought a handheld device should do. I fully expected HTC, Nokia, RIM, Palm, and eventually Android to respond - but so far, and on the evidence of the current attempts, they've some way to go yet.

And the best part, from Apple's perspective, is that if these better spec phones really do start challenging, it's fairly simple to match their specs and still blow them away with the UI, App Store, and (I'm afraid so) cool factor.

Back to the article though, on this evidence, I'm not going to bother reading your reviews of any consumer tech products. Frankly, I'd trust Paris' opinion of technology before I trust whomever authored this tripe.

looped

I use a virgin mobile you can get for < $30, it costs $5/month to run, it's useful for emergencies, sits in the car and every once in a while i erase unwanted messages that arrive on it. it is a phone.

If want to listen to music i go home and listen in an appropriate environment.

It doesn't cost me anything to turn on the car radio to listen to news and traffic reports.

My total phone cost/yr are about $100.

Sometimes i carry a flip around to record video and audio that was pretty economical also.

Usually when im doing something i have the responsibility to actually be where i am with the people i am with instead of having social attributes that ADD challenged would laugh at.

Donkeys

@the anonymous twat who thinks Apple's success is all about exposure... yeah, and how do you think it got that exposure? With 5% share of the PC market? Don't make me laugh.

When the iPod was launched it only worked with Macs, and yet other people - LOTS of other people - took notice because it worked well and did the job it was built to do better than anything else on the market, unlike all the shitty asian POS that were designed (and bought) by retards who rated a product by how many frigging buttons you could cram onto the outside.

Poor Review

Poor review, clearly not by someone who has spent any time with any of these phones. I have had HTC for years including the HD (briefly), the horrible WM UI never gets any better and cheap thrills added by a PFY at HTC don't make up for it. My vote goes with the iPhone because of the incredible useability and vast amount of apps. Once pwned, there really is no comparison.

Usual lame comments I see.....

What is with all the nutters that come out to comment for these sort of articles?

Anyway, I've had the iphone, now have the HD, and had a play with the Renoir. Overall the HD is my preferred - but it has a lot of faults, and needs a hell of a lot of tweaking from the default shipped state. Clearly HTC did minimal user testing on the software, and a lot of things are plain shabby - it all feels a bit beta. Still, at the end of the day, once you've fiddled things to your preference, installed new apps, the sheer number of pixels and huge screen win over. It really is terrific for web browsing (once the relevant opera tweaks are applied!), as you can read most websites in landscape mode without any zooming required. Same for video - if you encode to h264 in an mp4 container, it can hardware accelerate and play fullscreen 800*480 smoothly. Terrific detail.

As for camera comments: the Iphone's 2 mpixel produces better quality than the HTC's 5 mpixel. There's an optimal number of megapixels for every size of sensor, beyond which the quality goes downhill as noise takes over. For a camera phone that's maybe 3 or 4mp - for a compact point and shoot 6ish, for a bridge 1/1.6" about 7-8, for an aps-c dslr 10-12 (for example, the Sony A300 10mpixel dslr produces better pictures than the A350 14mpixel, which is identical other than the mpixel count). Unfortunately idiots just read the headline figure and assume more means better. Ultimately, camera phones will always be useless, there simply isn't the space in there for decent optics and the size of sensor needed.

Ideally, I'd like to see a combination: the screen of the HD, but with the kind of usability testing Apple put into it. Would be nice if they bugtested the thing before selling it - you're paying more than the cost of many laptops, so really basic errors are unforgiveable.

@fireman above: there's a patch for the Touch HD's freezing problem. Still, like I said above, really shabby of HTC to ship with such an obvious bug.

Queues for HTC or LG?

Weren't the queues for the iphone mostly paid actors in the end? Perhaps HTC and LG learned from Apple's mistake there.

As an owner of the HTC Touch Diamond, fully synched to my work exchange server I would say that I put my device through it's paces more than most.

At first I thought I had made a mistake in not opting for the iPhone as my business partner did as the original firmware it shipped with was best described as sluggish, and worst described by a four letter expletive.

Having upgraded the firmware however, I have found that the device functions at a speed similar to it's apple half brother, whilst my business partner curses the lack of MMS functionality, I appear to have everything I could wish for on a mobile handset.

That's not to discredit the iPhone, it's pretty good too and the exchange sync capability 'out of the box' was a seamless to setup as my windows device and nothing like the rigmarole thats involved with setting up a blackberry device!!

I've purposefully left out the LG, I've yet to use one or come across anyone using one, maybe it's more popular among 'residential' customers as opposed to business ones, but being qualified to comment on the two devices we're using on a daily basis, the HTC Touch (Insert Derivative Here) and the Apple iPhone (original and now 3G) operate and perform exactly the tasks we need it for.

As for the Windows/Apple Fanbois argument, I think the end is in sight! Our I.T. consultancy deals with both brands and you know what? They're both equally brilliant at performing different tasks each in their different way, and equally crap at doing others in their own individual way too.

People envy me and my iPhone

Many times I'd be at a party or some sort of get together and everybody will be taking out their phones and talking about their phone specs and what they can do. Then I whip out my iPhone and everyone shuts up and the room gets very quiet as I show off how easy it is to use all the features of the iPhone. Someone will say something like "my phone can do that but I always have a hard time finding the app." That's what I love so much about the iPhone. It's so damn easy to use. My only complaint is the 2MP camera. Now I have serious envy with the 8MP camera.

Mass opinion

The problem with sites such as gsmarena and to an extent with these comments is they are based largely on fanboys or haters that can be bothered to vote/comment, as opposed to any kind of scientific or informed opinion.

While I may not agree with the reviewer, I personally respect his opinion far more than the comments here or the 'opinions' expressed on sites like gsmarena and/or other user review sites.

Use your brains people: read informed opinions rather than votes, seek a variety of opinions, and make up your own mind.

Do you really believe X-Factor is the best way to generate new musical talent, after all?

Dear El Reg

Stop pretending you don't like the iPhone. Hearing you call it "Jesus Phone" and list all its faults tends to ring hollow when you can't go more than 3 days without publishing some non-story about the damn thing.

The following things aren't news when other phones do them, so please stop publishing stories about:

Third Party Software Releases.

Firmware Updates.

Firmware Unlocks.

Application Developers bitching about the platform.

Also: Given that the iPhone basically gets re-reviewed every time it DOES get a firmware update, how about re-reviewing both the Omnia and the Storm, both of which suck significantly less post update.

Have the haters ever actually used one?

I've always avoided Apple stuff. My MP3 is not an iPod, and I dislike iTunes (sadly my daughter insisted on having an iPod so I have to have it installed).

I use an LG-Viewty, which is touch-screen. It's pretty cool. Then the other day I had a play with an iPhone. As soon as my contract runs out I will be getting one. In fact, I was begging my wife to just let me get one there and then. The interface is simply awesome and just miles better than anything else I've used.

surprising

I find the LG an odd choice. I know two people with an LG and both say it needs rebooting almost daily. On top of that it is a pain to work with. The omnia should have been on here but seeing as there is a windows phone already may have budgeoned it slightly. How about the G1? Sure it is in its infancy but there are some definate plus points on the G1. Blackberry storm? HTC HD pro with its swanky keyboard?

The iphone is a good gadget but not seriously useable as a general smartphone.

Not up to usual el reg standards. Then again Paris is lacking in standards too.

@Ivan Headache

Spot on!

This is what the geeklings and nerdbots don't understand. There are MILLIONS of people who don't care that the iPhone hasn't got a squillion megapixel camera, can't MMS, can't video etc., They want (and get with the iPhone) a gadget/phone which works with such fluidity and ease of use they don't have to turn to page 342 of the manual to find out how to join two calls together.

re: You apple freaks are idiots

"Oyyyyy IDIOTS, not everybody likes that freaking brand, get used to it and immediately get over it.

You lot are the pathetic ones, you are the idiots who walk through life with blinkers on which clearly makes you blind"

Oh dear, we've hit the crux of the matter. Apple 'fanbois' may be bad, but they are <= the bizarre reasoning behind someone who doesn't like the iPhone BECAUSE they don't like the brand? That's like not eating cornflakes cos you don't like Kelloggs and eating some weird alternative.

Complain that you don't like a products features, or that you do like the functionality, that's fine. But choosing to hate a product because you have a gripe against the owning company?? That's just cutting your nose off to spite your face.

I own an iPhone and think it great - not flawless - but not a great fan of the way Apple operates (example one, why isn't it determined as a monopoly yet? Billy Gates had to strip IE out of Windows if so desired, Apple don't even allow a 3rd party browser).

See? It's possible to like the thing and find fault with it - much like any other product. Nothing, repeat NOTHING is perfect.

RE: iPhone.

The iPhone is much like Madonna from distance she commands awe and interest from the masses, In magazines and on the box she looks like a sleek 30's something songstress but under the hood she a crippled old hag running on a 30 year old concept to pop music. Of course in the iPhones case it's running on a horribly crippled version of BSD (Unix - 30 year old O/S).